


Names

by Supernova95



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU - Comicverse, Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Implied Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 02:28:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supernova95/pseuds/Supernova95
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Names had never really been important to Tim: not really. Not until Robin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Names

Tim was used to being different people, he didn't like it but it was part of his life, so he just had to get used to it and move on. Growing up he was conditioned to respond to anything; Timothy, Young Mister Drake, Boy, Squirt, Titch, Oi You, even the look; the disappointed  _I don't want to even give you a name at the moment because giving you a name would make you mine and you just embarrassed us in front of all these important people_ look that makes Tim want to collapse in on himself, that makes him want to tear up and start crying his eyes out because no matter what he does, no matter how hard he tries he can't do anything right.

He can't be perfect little "Timothy" for his parents; for his mother who is too focused on how her family looks to those important men in posh, expensive suits; who only had a child so that the owners of Drake Industries looked like the perfect little family for board members and potential investors who never saw the neglect, the abuse behind closed doors.

He isn't "Young Mister Drake", the young cute extraordinary little boy who is content with being cooed over, who is content with people fussing over him, pinching his cheeks, telling him how amazingly smart and brilliant he is and that he will make his parents proud when he takes over the company.

He hates being "Boy" or "Oi You" because those names were only used when his Dad was angry and/or drunk, and when he was angry and/or drunk he scared Tim, he hurt Tim, left bruises everywhere, places where people would see (where he walked into doors, fell down stairs or out of trees); but he also left them where people wouldn't see, where nobody would dare look, places where normal, nice people would blanch at the thought. He hurt Tim on the outside, made him cry, throb in pain but pain, physical injuries he could get over; they would heal in time but he couldn't get over how each drunken episode he was dying inside, he was hurting, scarring inside because throughout his dad's drunken stupor's flurry of punches and… mistreatment his mother would sit in the corner of the room cuddled into a ball watching with stone cold eyes, just glad that her husband is taking it out on her son, and not on her.

But he took it, he didn't resist, or fight back because he deserved it… school taught him that. School was supposed to be a rest bite from being anyone but Tim; but even here they managed to belittle him into accepting that he didn't deserve to be "Tim", "Timothy" or "Young Mister Drake"… that he  **was**  "Titch" and "Squirt", because they said so, because their bigger than him, better than him, so he accepted it; because they were right. He wasn't perfect as just Tim because his parents didn't want "just Tim", they wanted perfect little "Timothy", or child prodigy "Young Mister Drake" or helpless little "Boy" or "Oi You". They had never wanted just him which is why he had to keep changing.

Names had never really been important to Tim: not really, because to so many people he was merely an object, a means to an end… so why did it matter what they called him so long as he fulfilled whatever purpose they had designated him. Until Robin.

He had liked Mr Wayne from the moment he first saw his kind face at some important event his parents made him go to. He had tripped over the bottoms of his too long trousers and accidently knocked over a plate of pudding right in front of the man who, he had been told, was the host who had graciously let Tim come along, so Tim  **must not**  do anything but be a little angel. He liked Mr Wayne because when he looked at the little boy covered in moose in front of him he didn't get angry, disappointed, he didn't look as though he was going to kill him; he did however chuckle a bit and call over a man that reminded him of his grandfather with a weird accent who had got him cleaned up as though nothing had ever happened.

He really liked it when Mr Wayne took him in after his parent's died whilst on one of their "business trips"… an avalanche apparently; he held him close… wondering why the little boy in front of him flinched so much when he was touched but doing it anyway, letting him cry over people he loved but they could never love him back. He liked Mr Wayne because he didn't lock him in his bathroom when he fell over on the field at school and got the knees of his trousers all dirty and not let him out until they were clean so that he learns to be responsible and not mistreat things that had been given to him. He liked Mr Wayne because from the first time he stepped into the Manor as a new member of the Wayne family he asked him what he preferred being called; "Tim? Timothy? Timmy?" and he almost burst out crying because nobody had ever given him the choice before. They had all just expected him to be what they wanted him to be… not what he wanted to be.

He liked Mr Wayne because he was Batman, and Batman gave him Robin; he gave him a place where he truly belonged, and Robin was not Tim but Tim was Robin and he could make Robin whatever he wanted him to be because Mr Wayne had given him Robin and he didn't expect anything but for Tim to be himself and follow orders, which he could do; not because Tim blindly followed orders but because those orders were given with care and an  _I don't want to see you hurt_ look because  _I don't know what I would do without you_ _ **Tim**_ because _you are a little light in my life and I want you to see that because no one's told you that before._  So Tim follows orders because he wants to help, and he wants to survive so that he himself "just  **Tim** " could be a light in his father's life.

He doesn't even mind when Dick comes home from college and starts calling him "Timmy" because "Timmy" is Tim in Dick's eyes and in his eyes Tim is perfect… but "Timmy" is apparently more appropriate for how cute he looks when Dick cuddles him.


End file.
